Imagine if just about every single person in New York City were on the job hunt…at the same time!

That’s the case for youth in Latin America and the Caribbean: according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 7.8 million of the region’s young people are looking for work. Youth unemployment for these youth ages 15-24 averages 13.4%, double the 6.3% general unemployment rate. This figure is particularly high for young women, at 17.2% versus 11.3% for young men.

“What is the point of college?” asked the New York Times’ Sunday Magazine recently. In the United States, the question of the value of investing in higher education stems from the steep price of attending college, particularly “for the average American household that doesn’t receive a lot of financial aid.”

Countless organizations across the region aim to help youth fulfill their potential and be better prepared for jobs and their lives ahead. At the MIF, we’ve seen and supported many innovative youth training projects, including approaches that use sports, arts, or even circus acts. However, many such pilot-scale youth employment and entrepreneurship projects remain small. How can we at the MIF help them expand their reach to wider populations? And what are the critical factors that lead to their success or failure on a larger scale?